The Productivity Pro® Blog by Laura Stack - Time Management, Getting Things Done, How to Be More Productive

I’ve worked full-time from my home since 1992 and can’t imagine doing it any other way. Whether you work full time out of your home, occasionally telecommute, catch up on work in the evening, or run a household, you need some sort of dedicated “office” space in your home. Offices can serve as the family computer center, a place to do paperwork, and the occasional work-at-home office.

The first big question is where to locate your home office. Until the last few years, most builders didn’t catch on to the popularity of a built-in home office. If you have a computer, you probably need more than an antique writing desk in the living room. But if you only use your “office” to pay bills, write letters, and return phone calls, you can get away with a corner of the kitchen.

In most homes, extra space is difficult to come by, so you’ll need to get creative. I’ve seen people attempt to use a hallway, part of a bedroom, and even a closet. However, it’s difficult to work while children are running around you, you see your bed and think about napping, or when it’s too cramped. So I’ve always commandeered the “formal” dining room or living room—no one ever used it anyway—so it’s wasted space. Or perhaps you can steal the guest room.

Set yourself up for success. If you are going to be working from your home full-time, use this checklist to ensure you’re set up for success and maximum productivity:
• Where will you set up your home office?
• How will you modify the space to meet your needs?
• Can you lock the door? Can you lock the windows?
• Do you have sufficient lighting for that area?
• What office supplies you will need?
• Where are the electrical sockets located? Will you need additional power sources?
• Do you have enough storage space, such as a file cabinet, bookcases, credenza, closets, etc.?
• Where you will store back-up disks? Is the storage area safe from fire, flooding, etc.?
• If your home office is in the basement, and if the basement tends to get damp, do you have a de-humidifier?
• Do you have a personal computer that you already use at home? Will you need different software or upgrade the RAM? Will others need to stop using it for personal purposes?
• Do you have sufficient office equipment for your home office?
• Do you have a desk? Is it large enough to do office work?
• Do you need to have a modem installed on your home computer?
• Are there sufficient phone jacks in the area you’ve designated for your home office?
• Do you need a separate fax line, Internet line, and business line?
• Do you have voice mail or an answering machine?
• Do you have a smoke detector in your home office area?
• Do you have a fire extinguisher located hear your home office?

Regardless of whether you work full-time from home or a few times each month, your home office has some common requirements:

Furniture and storage
• A professional office desk and worktable
• Sturdy filing cabinets and drawer space for files. Invest in quality pieces that won’t fall apart.
• An ergonomically correct chair
• Bookcases or shelves to hold binders, trays, phone books, and reference manuals
• Stackable storage units that maximize your space vertically
• Large garbage can
• Supply caddy/accessories
• Stackable trays for “in” and “out” boxes
• A large, standing document sorter with slots for envelopes, fax paper, letterhead, etc., that fits under your desk for easy access.

Computer and peripherals
• A computer with lots of RAM, a large hard drive, and a DVD burner
• External back-up system (like www.godaddy.com or an external drive)
• DSL or cable or satellite Internet connection (no dial-up)
• High-security remote access to your offsite office computer (like www.GoToMyPC.com)
• USB hub such as Linksys 2.0, which has seven easy access ports to plug in your keyboard, iPod, PDA docking station, digital camera, USB flash drive, etc.

Software
• Spam filter, such as www.mcaffe.com
• Internet security and virus protection, such as www.norton.com
• Integrated contact management, such as ACT (my favorite) or Goldmine
• Fax within the computer, such as WinFax Pro
• Postage, such as www.stamps.com, www.pitneyworks.com, or www.dhl.com
• Accounting, such as QuickBooks Pro for business or Quicken for home only
• Email software, such as Microsoft Outlook
• Calendar, such as Microsoft Outlook, or a paper planner, such as www.daytimer.com/laurastack

Other technology and equipment for people who work at home
• A separate business phone line and fax line if you conduct business from home so your clients don’t get voice mail saying, “You’ve reached the Smith residence.”
• Wireless headset (I use GN Netcom plus receiver lift)
• Cell phone and PDA, which can be separate, but optimally a SmartPhone, which includes PDA and email access
• Pager or text pager (only if you’re required to carry one)
• High-quality laser printer, copy machine, and scanner (separately or all-in-one)
• Telephone with voice mail

Who knows…setting up a clean, organized, productive office space at home might allow you to consider more work-at-home or other home-based business opportunities.

© 2008 Laura Stack.  All rights reserved.  Laura Stack is a personal productivity expert, author, and professional speaker who helps busy workers Leave the Office Earlier® with Maximum Results in Minimum Time®.  She is the president of The Productivity Pro®, Inc., a time management training firm specializing in productivity improvement in high-stress organizations.  Since 1992, Laura has presented keynotes and seminars on improving output, lowering stress, and saving time in today’s workplaces.  She is the bestselling author of three works published by Broadway Books: The Exhaustion Cure (2008), Find More Time (2006) and Leave the Office Earlier (2004).  Laura is a spokesperson for Microsoft, 3M, and Day-Timers®, Inc and has been featured on the CBS Early Show, CNN, and the New York Times. Her clients include Cisco Systems, Sunoco, KPMG, Nationwide, and 3M.  To have Laura speak at your next event, call 303-471-7401. 

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These days, most of us use handheld technology in all aspects of our daily lives, blurring the boundaries between work and home. Has this made you feel more overworked and less energized? If so, you need to learn how to break free from technology, turn it off regularly, stop letting it control you, and unplug in ways that boost your energy. Let’s chat about your electronic habits, and about how to regain control.

1. Plan your screen time and stick to it. It’s unnatural to focus on a computer or TV screen for hours on end instead of interacting with people. Yet this is precisely what most people do — and the subsequent feelings of social isolation and depression can be quite damaging to your energy level.

2. Put your life first. Don’t let technology eat up your free time; technology exists to simplify your life, not to complicate it. It’s up to you to keep it in check. A good start is to turn off all electronics an hour before bedtime.

3. Keep your electronic in-box empty. Slash through the electronic detritus to maximize your efficiency, and therefore your energy level. If you let your voicemail and email inboxes get overcrowded, important communications might fell through the cracks, straining a friend’s or client’s trust in you.

4. Get your computer organized. Too much computer clutter can drain your energy just by forcing you to hunt for things that should be easy to find. Delete old files, reorganize folders, and give files names that make their contents obvious at a glance.

5. Turn off your technology when you’re on personal time. You can’t recharge your personal energies if you’re always working. Once the workday is over, make yourself electronically scarce.

6. Avoid Obsessive Compulsive Technology Disorder. You don’t need to check your email constantly. Doing so is forces your brain to start/stop/start/stop constantly, which requires a huge amount of mental energy. Instead, turn off the technological distractions so you can get work done.

7. Just say no to instant messaging.  Instant messaging is a great way to stay in contact, but too much of it steals time and energy you need for other work. Don’t be afraid to turn on the “DO NOT DISTURB” feature when you want to focus on a task that requires your complete concentration.

8. Match the message to the medium. Use the right means of communication for a particular message. Sometimes email is the most efficient way to communicate with a particular person; sometimes it’s better to pick up the phone.

Electronic devices are supposed to make your life easier, not more stressful. If they’ve begun to dominate your life — including your time off — step back and decide whether all that stress is worth the reward. It may be time to shed some of that technology, or at least to put it back in its place.

© 2008 Laura Stack.  Laura Stack is a personal productivity expert, author, and professional speaker who helps busy workers Leave the Office Earlier® with Maximum Results in Minimum Time™. She is the president of The Productivity Pro®, Inc., a time management training firm specializing in productivity improvement in high-stress organizations.  Since 1992, Laura has presented keynotes and seminars on improving output, lowering stress, and saving time in today’s workplaces.  She is the bestselling author of three works published by Broadway Books: The Exhaustion Cure (2008), Find More Time (2006) and Leave the Office Earlier (2004).  Laura is a spokesperson for Microsoft, 3M, and Day-Timers®, Inc and has been featured on the CBS Early Show, CNN, and the New York Times. Her clients include Cisco Systems, Sunoco, KPMG, Nationwide, and 3M.  To have Laura speak at your next event, call 303-471-7401.  Visit www.TheProductivityPro.com to sign up for her free monthly productivity newsletter.

Its About Time

Pareto is very busy in the sales world.  You know the 80-20 rule.  In this case, it means that only 20% of salespeople spend 80% of their time on selling activities.  Are you in this group?  See if you recognize yourself.  If not, here’s how you can join the group.      

Put your fingers on it fast.  Laura Stack is a professional speaker and author of Leave the Office Earlier® and Find More Time.  She sees several time wasters that cost salespeople valuable selling time.  One of the biggest time wasters is lacking a system to track client history.  The system should include notes on conversations that took place, with whom, and when they took place.  Stack says, “To be truly organized you should be able to have a prospect call you out of the blue and you should be able to immediately refer back to a conversation that took place years ago.”  Without the system, you can’t be effective. You may even frustrate clients who have to repeat themselves and might have to rely on facts that aren’t correct.   Stack uses ACT! to take notes while talking with clients on the phone.  Many salespeople are unaware that Outlook can be used to track history.  The journal feature allows you to take notes and attach those notes to the contact.  Stack adds that you can use a manual folder system if you prefer. What is essential is to have a system to aggregate and retrieve client history. 

There’s an unexpected time waster—the BlackBerry.  It’s hard to use one for taking notes because you can’t type that fast.  Stack sees salespeople taking notes on scraps of paper, place mats and even their hands. That haphazard system makes them more disorganized.  She suggests, “Understand the features and benefits and decide if it’s for you.”  It’s important once you do take notes to enter them into your system as soon as possible so they don’t pile up.

Get to work fast.  Another time waster is when salespeople lack a plan or poorly plan their daily activities.  It starts by having a system to schedule follow up tasks like telephone calls.  If you tell a customer you will call in two weeks, you must follow through.  Some salespeople think they can remember everything they promise. That’s far too taxing. Instead, a technology supplied or manual system works well to keep your promises.  She says, “People will work with someone who is reliable more than someone they like.”  Some inefficient salespeople begin each day thinking, “Who am I supposed to call today?”  Stack says that when you come to work each day you should already know whom you’re supposed to call and what you’re supposed to do.  If you work in inside sales, your planning can be the last task of the previous day.  If you do a lot of driving, a week out is sufficient and more time is required for air travelers.  In addition, at the beginning of each month Stack recommends reviewing activities for the coming month.

Work on selling.  Stack sees many salespeople wasting time on activities that take them away from selling. One activity is constant email checking which she suggests reducing to once per day. She sees salespeople who take notes on spiral notebooks only to waste time flipping back through the notebooks to locate a particular piece of customer information.  She often hears complaints about completing reports that are time wasters. Yet when she asks, “What have you done about it?” she often gets the response, “Nothing.”  Stack reports, “If leadership knew, they would care as it’s directly impacting the profitability of the sales force.” 

You may think you don’t have time to plan your selling.  You really do.  Stack says, “Organization is an enabler. Once it’s in place, it allows you to make more sales. It’s a launching pad to reach more sales revenue.”  Sounds like it’s time to take the leap and join the 20% that are selling more effectively. 

Maura Schreier-Fleming works with business and sales professionals on skills and strategies so they can sell more and be more productive at work.  She is the author of Real-World Selling for Out-of-this-World Results which is available at www.BestatSelling.com.  She founded her company Best@Selling in 1997.  You can reach her at 972.380.0200 or info@Bestatsellling.com. 

The results from the Gallup Organization’s annual Work and Education survey show the average American averages 46 minutes commuting to and from work in a typical day.  If you take out those who work at home, the average increases to 48.1 minutes per day.  However, if you have above-average income and work more than 40 hours a week, your commute is greater than the average, and so is your stress level.  Since the advice "move, earn less, and work fewer hours" doesn’t work, let me instead give you some ideas to make your commute more productive, efficient, and stress-free:

Use the phone. Now I’m one of those people who get aggravated while people are chatting away on their cell phones while driving…generally because they’re not, well, driving. Many people have no idea how slowly they’re going while they’re on the phone. Plus talking on the phone has proven to be unsafe, and many states have passed ordinances against it. Often, you’ll see someone pulled over to the side of the road to make a call.

That being said, you can get a hands-free phone installed, which uses a mounted phone and speakers. Many phones, like the Treo 650, use Bluetooth technology, which allows you to wear a wireless earpiece and talk hands-free. By using these safe options, you can still use your phone to call clients or catch up with friends and family while still keeping your hands on the wheel and eyes on the road.

Clear your brain. Basically, use your morning commute as a warm up to your day. On the way to work, do whatever helps you focus and arrive at your desk raring to go. For mass transit travelers, that may mean reading the daily paper with a cup of coffee. Drivers may like to listen to news radio for their daily summary.

Bond with your family. While driving together to “away” games or a relative’s house, you can sing songs, quiz your child on his spelling words, play “I spy” or another travel game, or listen to stories. When your eyes are on the road, your child may feel more comfortable than usual bringing up a touchy subject, so be available to just listen as well.

Shift your schedule. If you frequently get stuck in traffic, consider changing your schedule slightly to hit the road slightly before or after the rush, and use the time on either side to organize your day.

Use a voice recorder. I knew a professional speaker who wrote an entire book by talking while driving. She clipped a microphone on to her shirt and talked into a recording device (there are many available). Then she simply had those tapes transcribed, hired an editor to clean it up, and printed it at www.instantpublisher.com. She has published a book at the rate of about one a year using this method. Other people get voice recorders (Radio Shack sells a good one) with several minutes of tape and dictate their letters while on the go. If you’re blessed enough to have an assistant, he or she can type your letters from the recording. Some cell phones also have recorders built into them, so you can make your to-do list or remind yourself of things as you think of them. Do NOT, under any circumstances, attempt to write while driving unless you’re completely stopped.

Listen to books on tape. My favorite place to eat breakfast is a restaurant called Cracker Barrel…hash brown casserole, grits, and honey ham, baked apples…oh, sorry! The closest one to me is an hour’s drive away, so I don’t get to frequent it often enough because of traffic. But if you’re lucky enough to have one in your hometown or pass a sign for one along the road, STOP. You’ll notice that Cracker Barrel restaurants are always built right off an interstate exit. One of the founders’ core strategies was to make them easy on, easy off from the interstate. You could get to the next one on a tank of gas, refuel, grab a bite, buy what you need (and what you don’t need) in their little store, and get back on the road. Cracker Barrel has also came up with a clever book-on-tape program for frequent travelers. The next time you visit this restaurant, look for the spinning rack of tapes. You can purchase one audio book and, for a nominal fee, trade it in for another, anytime, at any other Cracker Barrel. Or you can get tapes and CDs from your local library before you go on a trip. You’ll notice that your perception of drive time is greatly reduced when you’re listening to an audio book. Your brain gets engaged in the story and time flies by. I have a friend who was planning an international trip, so she listened to French language tapes while in the car. Within three months, she learned enough French to get around nicely while there.

Carpool with your spouse. If you work roughly in the same area, hitch a ride with your sweetie! You can use the extra time each day to talk. While one person drives, the other can take care of miscellaneous family business on the phone. By the time you reach your door, the calls will be done and you can enjoy more quality time together at home.

Take the train instead. If you’re lucky enough to have a great public transportation system, use it! Of course, many professionals are forced into taking commuter trains because of traffic or distance or speed. But many people have told me they live for their train time because they can complete light paperwork, catch up on reading, pay bills, or just nap. By the time they arrive home, they feel rested and can settle into the second shift.

What are some other ways you take advantage of your commute time?

A new study of 10,000 workers by Kenexa Corporation found that employees who telework from home at least on occasion were happy than those who had to put in "face time" every day at the office.  I hope managers who still insist on measuring employees by the hours in the office vs. results are reading this.  Just because they are in the office doesn’t mean they are producing anything of value.  You can have one employee work an eight-hour day and another work a twelve-hour day, and the eight-hour worker can be FAR more productive than the twelve-hour worker.  It doesn’t matter how long you’re there; it only matters what value you created in that time.  If one "loyal" worker toiled the office all day for 12 hours but played solitaire, bought plane tickets for a vacation, checked their fantasy football scores, and made personal phone calls all day, who cares that they were in the office!  I’d much rather let someone work from home occasionally and build loyalty and increase retention and measure that person based on what they produced.  Organizations that allow occasional telework allows them to recruit the very best talent.  In turn, employees give their best every day and are less likely to search elsewhere where this oppotunity isn’t provided.  With the tightening labor market, it’s imperative that leaders reassess their positions around working from home if they want to attract and keep the best workers.

As Mark Sanborn, bestselling author of The Fred Factor, wrote in the Foreword of my book Leave the Office Earlier:

“Too often leaders focus on input rather than output. There are times when arriving early and staying late are necessary, but the real test of an employee’s abilities and commitment is accomplishment. The proof is in the results, not the recorded hours.  Today, good employees refuse to sacrifice their family and personal lives on the altar of antiquated employer expectations. If you are a leader, face the facts: you are renting talent, not buying the hearts and souls of workers. You will either focus more on results and contribution and less on desk time or end up with a team of posers. If you are a valued employee, find somewhere to work where your contributions are recognized.”

Not everyone has the natural ability to live out of a suitcase or do business from a laptop bag. However, with a little practice, you can learn how to make the most of your travel time. It’s amazing what you can get done when you put some miles between yourself and the usual distractions of everyday life.

So how do you make the most of your time away? Here are some tips that work for me. I hope a few of them will help you become as efficient when you’re away from the office as you are when you’re there.

Pack efficiently. It all starts with being organized and thinking ahead. Did you ever stay up half the night packing and spend an entire trip frustrated, exhausted, and wondering what it is you forgot? Don’t let it happen again. It’s pretty rare that a trip will pop up at the last minute, but they do have a way of sneaking up on you. Instead of getting packed the day before, start thinking about your trip the week before. Find an out of the way spot to leave an open suitcase and drop things in as you think of them. When it really is time to get ready to go, you’ll be practically done. I have a toiletries bag with duplicate items of everything, so I only have to pack outfits. I have a friend, Rebecca Morgan, who photographs her entire outfit at home—shoes, jewelry, purse, etc.—so she can quickly pull together what she needs at the hotel.

Don’t check your briefcase or laptop bag with the luggage. Stuff happens. Bags disappear—usually not permanently, but long enough to make you wish you had them. While there’s not a whole lot that you can do if it does happen, you can at least be confident that your computer and other work essentials are close at hand. Don’t be tempted to tuck that stack of folders in with your suitcase. If there’s a baggage mishap, you can probably handle business in yesterday’s clothes, but not without your files. I wear business causal attire when I travel, since I have presented in my travel clothes before, but audiences are very understanding.

Have a plan. You’ll usually have a pretty good idea of how much downtime you’ll have during your trip. Before you leave, set some goals. How long is the flight each way? How long will you be alone in your hotel room in the evening? Know what you want to accomplish during various parts of your trip. It isn’t set in stone, just a guide. When you sit down in that airplane seat, you should know exactly what to do next. Maybe there’s a report you want to read or a proposal you want to write. Whatever it is, be ready to dive right in.

Embrace the smart phone (in moderation). You don’t need to become a full-fledged Crackberry addict to enjoy the benefits of a smart phone. It shouldn’t hijack your life, but it can be a useful tool while you’re riding in a taxi or sitting at the gate. Use your downtime to keep up with e-mail. It is a good feeling to know that your e-mail isn’t piling up while you’re away. A smart phone can also help you stay on top of things back at the office without having to play phone tag and leave voicemails all over the place.

Use a jump drive, just in case. It’s tiny, inexpensive, and in a pinch, just might save your career. These little gadgets can go right on your keychain, or for the truly paranoid, around your neck for safekeeping. You can use it as an emergency backup for files essential to your trip. If you laptop is stolen, your battery is fried, or you come face to face with the blue screen of death, you’ll have a backup of your files; like that presentation you came so far to deliver. I had a computer refuse to start up once, but I was immediately able to upload my PowerPoint presentation to the client’s laptop and carry on.

Simplify with a docking station. Do you find yourself transferring files between a desktop computer and your laptop when you need to travel or bring work home? This was one of the biggest frustrations and wastes of time for me for many years. Unless your work requires some serious computer resources (I’m talking way beyond Microsoft Office here), you can probably stop using that desktop machine altogether (I use a Sony VAIO). A docking station means you’ll be able to keep your nice big monitor and full-size keyboard, but still be able to pop your computer out of the dock and slip it into your laptop bag and have all your files in one place. It really is the best of both worlds.

Access your computer by remote. If taking your computer with you isn’t an option, consider setting up remote access. Some companies provide this through a virtual network. Otherwise, similar technology is available through sites like www.gotomypc.com. As long as you have internet access, you’ll have access to the files and programs on your computer. Once you’re connected, you’ll be able to operate your PC just as if it were right in front of you.

Load up a phone card. Hotel telephone fees can be outrageous and cell phone service can leave you hanging when you least expect it. I’ve often not had reception from my hotel room, couldn’t get an internet connection (to use Skype), and had to use the land line. Get a prepaid phone card or calling card service so you can make calls from your room without racking up phone charges or wandering around the parking lot searching for a signal.

Pick up an extra set of chargers and connectors. Keep them in your laptop bag or briefcase. This way all of the cords for all of your gadgets are always packed and ready to go. This applies to your cell phone, PDA, Bluetooth, and laptop computer. When you arrive back to your office, you don’t have to unpack all your cords. My sets are permanently plugged in my office and stored in my briefcase.

Get EVDO. If you absolutely need to have internet access wherever you are, EVDO (Evolution Data Optimized) provides high-speed internet access through certain wireless networks such as Sprint or Verizon. It’s like using WiFi without having to search for a hot spot. If you pay for connection charges a few times a month in a hotel, the convenience is worth the price tag.

Carry a pocket folder or portfolio. We’re not talking about running around the office where you can juggle fistfuls of papers until you get back to your desk. Conference papers, meeting notes, proposals, and sales receipts are all things that can end up crushed, mangled, or lost if you don’t have someplace to put them. Keep everything together and organized until you get back from your trip. I create an envelope for each client meeting and carry a seven-pocket Pendaflex folder for conferences, with the documents I need separated by day.

I hope these tips help you spend your time as a road warrior more productively, and more importantly, have less to do when you return home—so you can squander more time reuniting with your loved ones.

Make it a productive day! ™

According to Interactive Data Corporation (IDC), mobile workers will account for one quarter of the world’s working population by 2009.  As a manager and/or as a organization, you must be able to hire the right people for this type of position, as not every person is suited.  Back in 2004, I identified the personality traits required people who successfully telecommute:

1.      Self-Motivated—Do you tend to get things going on your own, or do you prefer to be directed by others?  Are you the type that when someone says, “Here’s this project, go figure out how to do it, the deadline’s this,” you get it done.

2.      Disciplined—Do you have to push yourself to work your hours?  Do you procrastinate?  Do you stay strapped to your seat long enough to get your work done?  Can you stay focused despite distractions?  When you start a task, do you see it through to completion?

3.      Okay Working Alone—Do you require social contact to be happy?  Do you like your private time and space?  Do you feel comfortable working alone, or do you thrive on having frequent contact with others?  If you can’t be alone, you may have excessive telephone talking or run menial errands just to get out of the house.

4.      A Good Time Manager—Do you handle interruptions, visitors, phone calls, and email well?  Can you schedule realistically, prioritize correctly, and delegate appropriately?

5.      Likes to Control Own Schedule—Do you resent micromanagement?  Do you like having the flexibility to set your own hours?  Can you make quick decisions under pressure without consulting others?  You’ll be good at telecommuting if you can roll with the punches confidently.

6.      Organized—Do you like to start your workday with a clean, organized desk?  Being organized isn’t everything, but it’s very important when you work at home.  Unless you have an overabundance of space, having a place for everything will go a long way toward helping you maintain sanity in your work and personal lives.  Efficiency and organization will allow you to be more productive.

7.      Comfortable with job requirements—Do you know how to do your work?  Are you off the learning curve?  Can you handle your tasks without a lot of direction?  Are you committed?  Do you thrive on a sense of accomplishment from having done a good job?

8.      Can balance work with rest of life—Do you have workaholic tendencies?  You must be able to know when to close the office door and when to get down to business.  Can you draw good boundaries with family and friends but resist the urge to wander into your office every evening until 10:00 p.m., ignoring your kids and family?

9.      Self-confident—Do you feel you could do anything you set your mind to?  Do you believe in your abilities to make things happen?  Since your coworkers and manager won’t be there to praise you, can you be your own best cheerleader and support yourself?  Are you generally an optimist?  Can you laugh at stressful situations to cope, or do you typically give up?

10.  Thrives on risk and uncertainty—Do you feel okay about stepping out of your comfort zone to take risks?  Are you a go-getter?  An adventurer?  Willing to put your all into your passion?  Working at home involves risk with relationships…can family members respect your efforts to work at home?  Will there be turf wars?  Will your image suffer at work?  Will you be looked upon as a slacker?  These are all big question marks when first starting out.

11.  Seeks support and advice from others—Do you know when to ask for help or support?  Are you a perfectionist and try to do everything yourself?  Successful telecommuters know their limits, and they know when to ask for help.  Being at home can wear you down.  It’s easy to take on too much if you’re not careful.  It’s tempting to work 12 hour days because you’re getting so much done.

12.  Good communicator—Telecommuters need to develop good working relationships with a variety of people: their customers, co-workers, boss, and family members.  To make this arrangement work, you’ve got to keep everyone in the loop and constantly informed.

Now a new study by Cisco identifies the psychological profile and communications resources required for successful mobile workers. Guess what?  They cite the same factors: extroverted, resilient, creative, independent, and disciplined.  A successful manager of mobile workers needs to trust their folks and enable them to manage their own workload, emphasizing results and deliverables rather than hours and “butts in seats.”  Managers can’t treat mobile workers the same way they treat fixed-desk, office-based workers.  If management doesn’t understand how to handle their folks or recruits inappropriate personalities, the business will potentially miss out on the benefits offered by mobile workers.  The right amount of communication—not too little and not too much—will avoid feelings of isolation or micromanagement.  Make sure these people have a high level of connectivity and can be productive wherever they are—taxi, home, plane, hotel, or airport gate.

I have a friend who jokes there are always three people in her bed: herself, her husband, and her Blackberry.  I was in California last week on vacation with my family and witnessed people typing away on their Blackberries while at Disneyland, with their children tugging at their pants legs, asking to go see Cinderella.  I was presenting a seminar yesterday, and one participant kept looking up to say, "Would you repeat that"? not because I wasn’t clear, but because she wasn’t paying attention to me—you got it—checking her email during class.  Examples abound but the bottom line is Americans are addicted to email.  Slaves to the Send/Receive button, countless workers sit at their desks, waiting for the next Desktop Alert, beep, cursor change, envelope in the system tray, whatever trigger prompts their Pavlovian response to interrupt whatever they are doing and check it.  And unopened email!  A present—for me!  Someone loves me.  Many workers allow themselves to get sucked in the email vortex for an entire day and not actually complete any work.  And then we blame the sheer mass for sucking all of our time, rather than acknowledging the reality: you are controlled by your email. 

A new study released July 26 by AOL in partnership with Opinion Research Corporation reveals that more Americans are using portable devices to email around the clock from virtually anywhere—even in the bathroom and at church.  Even more dangerously, 53% of respondents admit to tapping away *while driving.*  Some other interesting statistics:

* 83% of email users are checking while on vacation;

* 59% of those with portable devices are using them to check email every time a new message arrives.

* 43% of users keep the device nearby when they are sleeping to listen for incoming email.

*  15% describe themselves as "addicted to email" (really? only 15%?)

These statistics are just sad.  AOL was extolling this like a virtue, of course, that you can stay connected anywhere, anytime.  I think it’s a dangerous message.  We’re teaching people that in order to be productive and be a valuable worker, you have to be "always on," give up your private time, and check email at all hours of the night.  Portable devices are very convenient when you’re traveling for business, sitting on an airplane, in a taxi, driving as a passenger in a car with nothing better to do, at a business conference to stay in touch with the office, waiting to pick you kid up from soccer, etc.  There are certainly and definitely valuable uses for handhelds and they can be quite handy.  But be very careful about throwing yourself upon the altar of email addiction and sacrificing the quality of your life balance and time with your loved ones. 

The big differentiating factor is control.  If you shut your Outlook down completely for an hour, would you be able to resist checking?  Can you turn off your device for two hours while having a nice dinner with a spouse without thinking about it constantly?  Would you get hives if your Blackberry wasn’t charged?  Do you feel like the world is going to end?  I’m not here to judge you and neither should anyone else—only you know—intuitively—whether you have a problem.  Time to control yourself rather than letting technology control you.  If you think it’s bad now, just wait to see what happens in a couple years.

I enjoyed this post about how to be more productive with your Crackberry, I mean Blackberry.

Especially true is Nakagawa’s comment, "…the people who are the most productive don’t seem to have them." 

I’m sure you have your beefs about Blackberry usage in your organization (or by your spouse, for that matter).  If you were king or queen of the world, what "rules" would you create about Blackberry usage?  In addition to the 10 the author lists, I’ll add the following from personal experience:

1.  Do not pretend you are listening to someone by brainlessly mumbling "uh-huh" while you are answering an email on your Crackberry.

2.  Pay attention to the presenter during training sessions rather than using the time as your personal Crackberry play time.

3.  Use codes in the subject line when emailing, so Crackberry recipients can get your message without having to open it: "Do you know what the June budget figure is for professional services? END"  (AR = Action Required, END = End of message, LONG = read later etc.)

4.  Set your Crackberry to delete your email off the server when you delete it from your handheld (so you don’t have to do it twice).

5.  Turn your Crackberry off when you are standing in line for the Matterhorn at Disney World with your poor children tugging at your arm.

What are your rules?

Work Essentials: Today’s software and mobile devices enable new breed of ‘Road Warriors’

By Nina Bondarook

Gini Courter only worked out of her company’s office in Grand Traverse County, Michigan twice during the first half of the year. The balance of her time was spent traveling to provide software training and business solutions to clients of Triad Consulting, the firm she co-founded there 10 years ago.

“I spend 99.9 percent of my work time at client sites, in hotels or at remote locations,” says Courter, Triad’s managing partner. “I’m still adapting. Every time I see a laptop case with a couple of new features, I start to drool.”

She’s among a growing breed of Road Warriors who use today’s technologies to work from ‘any location at any time.’ In fact, Massachusetts-based IDC, a marketing research firm, estimates that by 2009 there will be more than 878 million mobile workers worldwide.

Sales people and repairmen were among the nation’s first mobile workers. But Courter says it’s a trend that’s being driven today by employees across the board who seek the flexibility and “higher quality of life” that a mobile environment can provide.

Businesses, too, are reaping the benefits. Studies show employees who telecommute from home or are mobile can save employers as much as $10,000 per year, depending upon how companies calculate their savings and other factors. For example, some businesses count the rent savings they accrue when employees move off site and smaller office spaces are required for operations. Others calculate the positive impact that happy mobile-enabled employees can have via reductions in absenteeism and employee churn. However launching a mobile initiative can also require additional investment in infrastructure, software, wireless devices and computer support.

At a very minimum, companies who send employees into the field should provide them with a wireless PC and a cell phone, says Lori Quaranta, co-founder of Consetta.com in Seattle, Wash., which provides small- and medium-sized businesses with Web solutions. In order to be truly effective, however, employees also will need a national wireless card that enables them to connect to the Internet from any location, remote access to e-mail via that laptop or some other type of personal digital assistant, and remote access to any database of information they’ll need in their work.

Nokia Corp. is one of the companies banking on the growth of the mobile workforce. In a company white paper, Nokia says it conducted a study in September 2005 that found most employees spend as much as one-third of their time away from their desks, and another third of their time conducting business out of the office.

“The ability to work while you’re on the road is no longer a competitive advantage; it’s a competitive expectation,” says consultant Laura Stack of Denver, Colo., who is ‘The Productivity Pro’ and founder of the company that shares that moniker.

“It’s becoming standard protocol to carry a Blackberry/Treo device so that you’re accessible when you’re away from the office,” says Stack, who averages 10 business trips a month. “But it’s not for everyone. Addictions (to wireless devices) can form fairly quickly for those who don’t insist on privacy or never turn them off. If your significant other says you shouldn’t be bringing your SmartPhone to bed, it’s probably too late for caution. You’re already addicted.”

That, says Courter, is exactly why both employers and employees need to develop written agreements and clear guidelines for mobile work. Not every employee is a good candidate for a mobile job, she says.  “Mobile employees need to be self-reliant, self-supervising, task-oriented workers. And they need to know how to use technology to get the job done.”

When they do go on the road, she adds, mobile workers should give themselves 30 days to settle into their new environments before evaluating their performance.

“People are going to have to be disciplined enough to shut off their mobile devices, or they’ll lose the work/life balance they were striving for in the first place,” Quaranta adds. “And don’t forget the human interaction side of things either. Even today, getting on the phone or conducting a face-to-face meeting can be more effective than relying solely on e-mail to communicate.”

Anyone interested in learning more about the growing mobile workforce can find a plethora of information on the Internet – especially on the Web sites of manufacturers that product mobile devices and software. Microsoft Work Essentials, for example, provides in-depth articles by non-Microsoft industry experts, software demos, downloadable templates and webcasts covering topics such as how to use Microsoft Office software on mobile devices, how to collaborate with co-workers when you’re working remotely, how to use instant messaging, and tips for working effectively as part of a virtual team. You can find them at: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX011543061033.aspx .